Wild Horses

Pearl Farm

Shoe Vendor

Traditional Tibetan Dress

Shibuya Station

Kazakh Woman

Hill of Crosses

Siauliai, Lithuania

Chef

Sichuan, China

Reef

Kauai, Hawai'i

Welcome to the Office of International Programs

3-4 July 2008, AmsterdamEthnographies of Gender and Globalization

Call for panels and papers

Globalization is the result of the rapid exchange of ideas, peoples, goods,capital, information and technologies, and the general compression of distances and time. Globalization processes have a large impact on people’s everyday lives. Even in the most remote parts of the world, people and locations are being connected to each other. This interconnectedness can be seen as the core feature of globalization. In turn, people respond to new challenges and opportunities offered by globalization. Their daily actions produce, transform and determine the specific directions that globalization processes may take.

The last decade, anthropology and other social sciences have produced an impressive body of literature on globalization. Globalization from a gender perspective, however, is still an exciting and innovative area to explore. Gender and feminist anthropology is a discipline par excellence that can make understandable how globalization and everyday life are interrelated, especially through its ethnographical methodology. Feminist scholarship has shown that globalization is not a gender-neutral phenomenon. Globalization has different outcomes for women and men. It challenges them in different ways and offers them different opportunities. Gender constructions shape globalization processes, which in turn confirm, construct and change gender notions. These developments result in profound changes in family life,family composition, cultural expressions, gender relations, and the way people interact with each other.

With this conference LOVA wishes to create a forum for anthropologists,social scientists and other experts who study the interweaving of gender and globalization from an ethnographical perspective. How do women and men understand globalization and how do they experience globalization processes in their everyday lives? What are the challenges they face and what opportunities open up to them? How does globalization confirm and reconstruct existing gender and other social inequalities? Does it have a potential for the empowerment of women and men and their social mobility or not? How does globalization influence constructions of femininity and masculinity and how do these constructions in turn give direction to processes of globalization? And, last but not least, is globalization still a useful theoretical concept or have we entered a new, post-globalization era and are we in need of new conceptualizations?

Participation and registration

LOVA invites social science scholars to participate in this international conference by presenting their research in an individual paper or panel. We particularly encourage participants to submit audio-visuals and other alternative ways of presenting their research.

Participants may register through sending individual paper or panel proposals to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before February 1, 2008.

Individual paper proposals consist of a short abstract. Please also mention affiliation, address, email-address and discipline. Panel proposals include a short panel abstract, various paper abstracts and names of organizers/chairs, presenters and possibly a discussant. Please also mention affiliation, address, email-address and discipline of all participants.

A number of papers will be selected for publication.

Preferred panel format: Panels last 1 hour and 45 minutes. Panel organizers have a certain freedom in the number of papers they wish to present and the length of the presentations. Nevertheless, we encourage 15-minute paper presentations. For example, a panel may include 5 paper presentations of 15 minutes each or 4 papers and a discussant. This leaves time for general discussion and questions of 30 minutes.

Participants will be informed whether their papers and panels are accepted as soon as possible and not later than February 15, 2008. To complete their registration, all participants pay the registration fee of € 90,- before April 1, 2008. Students pay a reduced fee. More information will follow.

Language: The conference will be held in English.

Program: The program will be made available in April 2008.

Location: The conference will be held in the centre of Amsterdam. The location will be announced as soon as possible. Please visit our website: http://www.lovanetwerk.nl/